A/N: 10/06/2010, slight editing of the end of the chapter.
Chapter 12:
"I told you before," James Cartwright pleaded inside the interrogation room. "I didn't kill anyone!"
"Then why were you trying to disappear?" asked Beckett.
"I wasn't... I..." he faltered. "I thought you were after me."
"You'd have no reason to think we were after you unless you did something wrong," said Mal.
"I didn't kill anyone!" he said again.
"You already said that," said Beckett. "So why have you been camping out at your girlfriend's place since the very night of the murder of Reverend Timothy Douglas of St. Paul's Church, of which you are a member?"
"Why would I want to hurt the Reverend?" said Cartwright. "He was a pretty decent guy."
"Eyewitnesses are willing to testify that about a month ago you were seen in a heated discussion with Reverend Douglas."
"What, did he dis the Yankees?" Mal added, not quite helpfully.
"He was just concerned about me," Cartwright said, his head turned away.
"And why was that?" asked Beckett.
"I sort of... fell in with the wrong crowd," he conceded.
"The mysterious visitor that stopped by your apartment the other week...?" Mal offered, remembering what Mrs. Chen had told him.
Cartwright stared at Mal silently, and with a look of dread written across his features. Kate noticed this, and decided to take advantage when he was feeling most vulnerable.
"Come on, Cartwright," she said. "Whatever you did wrong, it's got to be a lot better than standing accused of murder. This is your last chance to fess up. So, for your own sake, do you have an alibi?"
"The man... the one who came looking for me," Cartwright began, trembling slightly. "I kind of... owed him something. A few months ago, I came across this really great opportunity delivering stuff for these guys. The pay was decent, and I was hard up on dough at the time. And, well, when you said me and the Reverend got into an argument, that's kinda true. He sorta found out, and got upset with me, said I was throwing away my potential, and I was doing something bad, and I could get into serious trouble, and yeah. So since then, he'd been seeing me regularly, trying to convince me to get out of the business... And, to make a long story short, he eventually got through to me. So I promised him I'd quit. But my boss wasn't so happy. The thing was that when I decided to quit, I already had my next assignment scheduled. So when I didn't make the drop, he decided that I owed him. I couldn't afford to buy him off, so I got scared. I've heard story about these guys; you cross them just once, and you're never heard from again. So I thought I'd beat them to the punch, and I crashed at my girlfriend's for a few days while we took care of any loose ends so the two of us could get out of here, far away; you know, make a clean start.
I didn't even know the Reverend was dead until you arrested me."
Kate and Mal exchanged glances before Kate turned back to Cartwright, saying, "James, if you give us the names of the people involved in this operation you were working for, we can talk to the DA about granting you a pardon."
–
"So," said Kate, as after handing Cartwright over to the department that handled drug smuggling. "Another dead end."
"Maybe we've been looking at this all wrong," said Mal.
"Well, then enlighten us, Castle," said Kate.
He studied the white board that held all of the murder information thus far. "Why would a person kill someone with a knife instead of a gun? A knife is more personal."
"He traced around the heart; the message was very personal."
"Maybe it wasn't a message, maybe it was a symbol- payback."
"What if," said Kate, suddenly inspired. "The murderer believed that Reverend Douglas was to blame for his own loss of something close to him?"
"Did Lanie ever get back to us on what kind of knife it was?" Mal asked.
"Yeah," said Kate. "It was a regular kitchen cutting knife. And it must have recently been sharpened."
"Or brand new..." said Mal. "Who do we know that recently suffered a serious loss and also has lots of access to all types of kitchen utensils?"
"That guy that we interviewed the other day," said Kate. "Fred Saxon."
"Do we think it's him?" asked Mal.
"I think I'll require another interview," said Kate.
"I better call home and let them know I'll be a little late," said Mal.
A/N: Mal's last remark is intended to align time-wise with the phone call in the previous chapter.